It’s the little things that end up making live hard when one first leaves the comfort of the world one knows. With me it was – correction is – bread. German bread is just awesome, bread making is an art there and the variety and different flavors available there I have never found anywhere else, not even close.
German bread is the best in the world … prove me wrong. pic: http://www.rlv.de
The late 90s on the East Coast was a particularly dire time for bread. What was served there under this name didn’t deserve it. It was some white, spongy material that tasted of nothing and could be compressed to about 10% its size and would then spring back to its original shape. California of the 2010s is a lot better, we even have a German bakery with good bread – if one can afford it.
Chocolate was similar, German chocolate is okay, Swiss chocolate is great and Switzerland is closer to my home town than the next school district for us now. So I grew up on awesome chocolate and found Hershey’s inedible. I missed bread and chocolate and quark which simply does not exist in the US (for an explanation of this diary look here).
Banking was another almost insurmountable issue when I moved here. Back then (as now but less) people wrote checks. They would go to the drug store, buy a bottle of shampoo and pay with a check. I had never seen anything like it. People don’t pay with checks in Germany, they pay with cash (or debit and credit cards, but much less than here, cash rules supreme in your friendly neighborhood supermarket). When I moved to San Francisco my bank of choice sent me what must have been several 1000 checks (no kidding). I moved out of my SF flat 11 years ago and the occasional check I write still shows my SF address – and I am not even half way through the stash.
What I will miss most about California I don’t know yet but I have a suspicion that not being able to go shopping on Sundays will be a biggy, and where will I get those yummy little yellow mangoes from, and the Mexican spices?
Expats Returning - Or Not? 